Friday, February 1, 2013

Two poems for a Friday

These are from Charles Wright who just won the Bollingen Prize, which goes to "an American poet for the best book published during the last two years or for a lifetime achievement in poetry."

And the prize? $150,000.

Nice, huh?

From Sestets (FSG, 2009), these poems, with Wright's characteristic "low rider" line, just might get you thinking, on a snowy Friday, about the math of that kind of money, about a lifetime and its work.

Homage to What's-His-Name
Ah, description, of all the arts the least appreciated.
Well, it's just this and it's just that,
someone will point out.
Exactly. It's just this and it's just that and nothing other.

From landscape to unsuppressed conjunction, it's only itself.
No missteps, no misreading.
And what's more metaphysical than that,
The world in its proper posture, on all fours, drinking the sweet water?

Tutti Frutti
"A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop-bam-boo,"
Little Richard in full gear—
What could be better than that?
Not much that I know of, at least not in my green time.

It's hard, O, my, it is hard,
To find a sustainable ecstasy, and make it endure.
Detail, detail, detail—God and the Devil
hang side by side between each break.